"Matter?" roared Will; "I guess you'd ask, if you knew how old 'Crit'

had been cramming the fellows, and me nowhere. I'll--run away to sea, or somewheres. I'm not going to _stand_ it."

Will bounced his hand down so hard on a tea-poy, two little terra cotta shepherdesses bounded up from it, knocked their heads together, and fell clattering to the floor.

"O, Will," cried Emily, rising up with a scared face, and dropping her pretty work-basket, "don't talk so. You are tired now, and everything troubles you, because you have been sick so long. By and by, when you are a little stronger, you will feel differently. Don't think about the back lessons. Just try to be glad you are well enough to go to school again, and be with the boys."

"O, don't preach!" persisted Will, gruffly.

With the cloud still hanging over his handsome face, he shook himself away from the caressing hand which was laid upon his shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away to the great, pitiless sea.

"Asy! asy, now!"

This was Kathleen, the nurse, calling out in cautioning tones to Will, who had jerked against the tray she was carrying causing the two saucers of strawberries to click together sharply, and the b.u.t.tered rolls to slip over the edge of the plate.

"You're tired with the school, poor craythur, an' no wonder at that same. Larnin's murtherin', bad luck to it! I tried it mysel oncet, a moonth or so, avenin's. It's myself was watchin' for ye, Master Will, and when ye came round the corner I had this bit sup arl ready for ye.

'The crame--quick--Bridget!' says I, and then I ran away up the two flights with it; and barrin' the joggle you give it, it's in foine, tip-top orther an' priservation arl tegither, bless your little sowl!"

Kathleen set out the crisp little rolls and the great crimson berries in the most tempting way she could devise, and went off, bobbing her head with satisfaction to see the children place themselves at table, and partake of her well-timed lunch.

Will, as an atonement for the ungentle way in which he had come in upon his sister after school, offered her the nicest plate of berries, and insisted that she should take the crispiest roll. He suddenly remembered that Emily, too, had had whooping-cough and measles at the same time, and quite as badly as himself. But, then, she had not sprained her wrist or lamed her foot; so it was no wonder her temper had not suffered. Besides, it was expected of girls not to make a fuss.

In view of these last circ.u.mstances, he suppressed the apology he was about to make for his late unpleasant remarks.

"It never will do to give up too much to girls," he reasoned, draining the last drop of cream from the pitcher.

"Your grandmamma is coming over from Brookline this afternoon in the carriage, to take the two of you home with her to spind the night."

This was Kathleen back again at the nursery door, and wiping her face with her ap.r.o.n as she unburdened herself of this forgotten bit of news.

"You won't run away to sea now," besought Emily, with imploring eyes.

"Maybe I mightn't," shouted Will, tossing up his cap in glee at this unexpected prospect of fun.

It was now only the middle of the long summer day. Such a tiresome journey as the sun had to go before it rolled quite away in the west!

Will longed to give it a push, and to hurry up the clock to strike five, the hour when they should be on their way to beautiful Brookline.

Impatient little Will! Emily kindly helped him to get through with the lagging time. At her suggestion, he played ball a while on the lawn, while from time to time she nodded encouragingly to him through the open window. By and by the ball bounded up into a spout, cuddling down among some soft old maple leaves, where Will could not see it.

Thereupon Will came into the house in a great pet, storming about till he was persuaded to sit on the floor and paste pictures in his sc.r.a.p-book.

This quiet occupation did not amuse him long. His fingers, his chin, his cheeks, his curls even soon became stiff with mucilage. Mucilage on his trouser knees, mucilage on his jacket elbows--in fact, mucilage everywhere on and around him.

Emily, after having, with great painstaking, washed her brother and all the surrounding furniture, proposed that he should study a Latin lesson. The book soon went down with a bang. "Because," as Will sulkily explained to his sighing sister, "it made his head buzz."

Emily gently suggested a French lesson as a corrective of this unpleasant "buzz." The remedy soon proved to be a failure. The French book came down more noisily than the Latin book.

Emily laid aside her drawing in despair. It was such a relief to hear Kathleen's heavy step in the entry, and to remember it was time now for Will to be dressed for dinner!

Poor Kathleen had a thankless task before her. Master Will required a great deal of preparation. His curls were gummed and tangled; his fingers were inky, and suspiciously pitchy.

"You've been climbin' unknownst up that pine tree again, an' you a told not to?" questioned Kathleen, examining the fingers keenly.

"Hush up, and go ahead!" was Will's rude answer.

"How _can_ you speak so?" reproved Emily, turning round upon Will, while she tied back her hair with a band of blue ribbon.

"Fie, fie, sir!" cried displeased Kathleen, "going ahead" with great energy, her mouth pursed up in disapproval of Master Will's manners, while she washed, and combed, and curled, and took off and put on his apparel.

"Where's your stockings, Master Will,--the blue stripes?"

"Dunno."

Will sat in a low chair, his stubby bare feet stuck out before him, and his two hands actively employed as fly-catchers. Suddenly he remembered having amused himself the day before in oiling his sled runners, using the striped stockings for wipers; but he did not trouble Kathleen just then with the tidings. The blue-striped stockings were not found. Then came a difficulty with his new boots.

"Aow! they pinch!"

"Where, sir?"

Master Will, not being able to say exactly where, was left to get used to the new boots as well as he could.

"Now see, here's your new suit; an' be careful with it, mind--careful as iver was. It's me afternoon out; and if ye go tearin' the cloos on ye, ye'll jist mind thim yersel, or else go in tatthers wid yer grandmamma."

This speech had no more wholesome effect on Will than to cause him to stick out his tongue at Emily, while Kathleen, standing behind him, arranged his b.u.t.tons and his drapery generally.

"Now, if you could only be as good as you're purty," exclaimed Kathleen, wheeling Will suddenly round before his tongue was quite in place again, "you'd do well enough."

With a few finishing touches to Emily's sash ribbon, Kathleen went off to make her own gorgeous toilet for her afternoon out.

The dinner was next to be gotten through with. But that was not an unpleasant hour to Will. After dinner the children were permitted by their mother to amuse themselves under the shadow of the great elm behind the house. She knew that with Emily this permission simply meant liberty to sit quietly beneath the overhanging branches, gazing dreamily over the soft summer landscape, or listening to the sweet sounds that stirred the air around and above her. But with Will it might be more broadly interpreted into leave for frequent raids over fences and through bars for b.u.t.terflies and beetles, or any luckless rover that strayed along. So she explained to her son in this wise:--

"Will, dear, remember that your grandmamma is coming for you, and you must not soil or tear your clothes by running about. Play quietly in the shade. The time will not be long now."

"Yes, mum."

Such implicit obedience as this "Yes, mum" implied! In fact, there was the promise in it of every one of the cardinal virtues.

The two children then went away through the long hall, whose doors stood wide open in the warm summer afternoon, and Will, dragging along the slower-footed Emily, hurried on to the elm tree.

"Don't pull so, Will; I shall drop my basket, and my spool and thimble will roll away."

"What do you want to bother with work for this beautiful afternoon?"

inquired Will, slackening his pace.

"I promised mamma I would try and finish it this week," said Emily, "and I like to keep my word."

"I thought the machine sewed."

"So it does; but mamma says I must learn just the same as if there were no machines."